The Fleet-Book Four Sworn Allies

by David Drake (ed)

  “Naffie, you’ve had more than your share lately,” Bardie said firmly, and she and Nellie turned into ICU Bay 22. Naffie was deft with the anti-grav unit, slipping the unconscious patient onto the bed that folded its sensitive wings around its new occupant with tender intensive care.

  When Bardie reached her cubicle, the first thing she did was program her screen for a ten-minute printout on O’Hara, Lt. R.E.C. She took a fan-bath: even a cup of water could make you feel cleaner. She dialed for hot hi-protein meal, inserted herself into her bednet, and ate. The buzzer woke her and she had to blink hard to clear her eyes enough to see the screen. O’Hara was holding his own. She stayed awake until the next report but with great difficulty. She reprogrammed the screen to rouse her only if there was a significant relapse and was asleep almost before she lay back in the net.

  To her surprise, she got a whole ten hours sleep, waking up feeling guilty when she saw the time. The screen was flashing a no-change and she had to think hard to remember why she would be monitoring a patient here. Then Humpty O’Hara’s case came to mind and she tapped for a review.

  He, too, had slept ten hours. His vital signs were strong, satisfactory all along the line, with no hint of rejection from any of the new organs. But no signs of awareness, no return to consciousness. Which, Bardie thought, was kind. No one had discovered the universal pain-suppressor. She didn’t like to think of the pain, inevitable as it was in her profession.

  She dressed, drinking the hi-protein glop that was supposed to be all she’d need for the day’s efforts, and left her cubicle. The corridors were amazingly vacant and the sounds of personalized snores furthered the thought that there had been no new assaults. A lull in massacre was definitely welcome. She had only thirteen more days of this to endure before she was out of it. She alternated between wanting to be so occupied the interminable thirteen days would be over and done with or have time to adjust her thinking to a civilian standard.

  She stopped in the duty room and discovered she and Nellie were in the next shift—if there was one. She had an hour’s leeway. The information screen was scrolling through data on the last assault, but she had long since ceased to assimilate either victory or defeat—it all meant bodies to mend. She chided herself for letting that thought intrude. S’truth, but whatever victories were, won against whatever enemy, she found no glory in it, no matter how necessary the action, how urgent the winning, or what odds and against what, whom, or why. She couldn’t remember now what had prompted her to opt for a MASH assignment, apart from a momentary mental aberration. She had learned a great deal—maybe that’s why she had come—but there was a large pit of nothingness that one day she would be required to look into, process, and put aside.

  Bardie was somewhat surprised to find herself entering Bay 22 of the ICU, and stopping by Bed 4. The vital signs were as strong as could be expected; the new organs were still functioning normally. There was even a healthy tinge to O’Hara’s skin.

  “Can’t raise so much as a groan from him,” Naffie said, slipping in to stand beside her, his bright eyes flicking from screen to her face.

  ”Have you tried, Naffie?” Somehow Bardie Makem resented that.

  “In the line of duty, of course.” Naffie grimaced. “He really ought to come to long enough to know that he’s still alive! Gratitude, if nothing else.”

  Bardie grinned at Naffie’s disapproval, “So you could hold his hand and reassure him?”

  “I don’t really think he’s my type.” Naffie flounced off.”

  Bardie pulled back the sheet for a visual check. All the incisions and repairs looked good under their skinplas dressings. Of course, he hadn’t been thrashing around with either delirium or pain. She laid her hand on his chest; the skin was warm on hers. She felt his forehead, smoothing back the crisp hair; it was unusually soft to the touch, not wiry as the curling suggested. He really had the most handsome face. Idly, she brought one finger lightly down his cheek, to the thin pink scar, and was surprised to see a faint smile appear on the sleeping face.

  “O’Hara? O’Hara?” she spoke softly. “Roger?” She spoke a little louder for the smile was still there. “Roger!” He took a deeper breath and then seemed to settle further into sleep, his head turning ever so slightly to the left on the pillow, toward her, the smile still there. “Roger, lad. Wakey-wakey.” His brows pulled fractionally together in annoyance. “Roger, I know you’re in there, Open up!”

  “You’re having more success than anyone else,” said the ICU duty nurse at her elbow, startling her. “And we’ve tried.”

  “Since when is a grimace an indication of alertness?”

  “If it’s the only reaction anyone’s got out of sleeping beauty.”

  “It’s not a coma,” Bardie said, reviewing the signs. “No, it’s not. Normal sleep pattern. Doesn’t even vary when the medication begins to wear off.”

  “More should have that facility,” Bardie remarked as the patient in the next bed began to moan piteously. She walked as quickly as she could out of the facility.

  Both she and Nellie stopped by Bed 4 at the end of their shift, which had been relatively light. Mopping up operations were rarely as hazardous to life and limb, though they’d had some minor repair work from pong-stick land mines and some of the nasty heat-seeking darts the Khalia deployed at such times.

  At the top of the next shift, Bardie paused for another visit at Bay 22, Bed 4 where several colleagues had gathered, including the Head Psych.

  “Ah, Surgeon Makem,” Brandeis said, his wide smile resembling nothing more than a trap for the unwary, “I understand you did miracle surgery on this patient. Can you enlighten us in any way as to his current somnambulant state?”

  “He hasn’t regained consciousness yet?” Bardie was surprised and saw concern and disbelief in the other medics at the bedside.’ “Well, he did experience major bodily insults. Sufficient trauma there to keep him from wanting to know.”

  “Ah, then,” Brandeis said, leaping upon her suggestion, “this could be psychosomatically induced?”

  Bardie shrugged—she patched bodies, not minds. “His pressure suit kept him alive, maybe even conscious, but he had to have known that he was badly injured. The suit doesn’t record how long its inmate is conscious, merely his vital signs.”

  “Good point!” Brandeis and the others turned back to regard the calm sleeping countenance. “Could be! And his records do indicate ‘mercy’ in preference to disembodiment.”

  From his tone, Bardie thought Brandeis was annoyed that another “subject” had slipped away from him. Brandeis did a lot of counseling to “brains.”

  “Dr. Makem did get a response from Lt. O’Hara,” the duty nurse spoke up. She’d been standing to one side and Bardie hadn’t seen her. She could cheerfully have beheaded her.

  “Ah, when? And what?” Brandeis wanted to know, his expression almost avid.

  “Oh, I just felt his forehead.” Bardie felt silly—the hands-on was such an anachronism with so many sophisticated sensors to take accurate temperature readings.

  “And?” Brandeis encouraged her.

  “Faint smile. Might have been reflex. “She could feel herself blushing.

  “No doubt,” someone murmured in a droll voice.

  “One would have thought that such a handsome man wouldn’t have objected to brain-duty.”

  “Who’d see him?” The words were out of Bardie’s mouth before she could think and she blushed even more furiously.

  “A perfectly natural vanity,” Brandeis remarked with an equanimity not echoed in his hard eyes. Brandeis was a tolerably attractive fellow, in excellent trim, and according to wardroom gossip, plenty of activity in hetero relationships that were not at all professional, so Bardie wondered at the subtle envy. “Well, Dr. Makem, if you would be so kind as to repeat your gesture . . .” He stepped aside and indicated that Bardie move to the patient.
Bardie did not like his expression, his manner, or the suggestion.

  Reluctantly she stepped forward, and feeling more ridiculous than she had since a lowly intern, she put her hand on O’Hara’s broad forehead.

  “Is that all you did?” Brandeis asked superciliously, with a tolerant smile to the others when there was no patient reaction.

  Bardie fought a desire to turn and run. Grimly she replaced her hand and honestly duplicated the incident. “Roger O’Hara! Roger!” She let her fingers drift backward from his forehead to his crisp, curly hair, then down the side of his face. When the faint smile again touched his lips, she didn’t know if she was pleased or if she’d prefer the deck to open up and swallow her. But an experiment was an experiment.

  “Roger, wakey-wakey, lad.” And once again, the brows moved into the most imperceptible of frowns as his head inched away from her. “I know you’re in there. Open up!” Bardie paused, cleared her throat. “At least, that’s about what I said.”

  There was a long and embarrassing pause as her colleagues absorbed action and reaction.

  “And that’s all you did?” Brandeis asked, frowning.

  Bardie contented herself with a noncommittal nod, recovering her professional poise.

  “That’s more response than anyone else has had,” the duty nurse said approvingly.

  “If you will, nurse,” and Brandeis motioned for her to repeat Bardie’s hands-on. There was notably no reaction. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

  Bardie’s collar alarm burred quietly. “My shift, Doctors. Excuse me.” She was out of the bay as fast as was dignified.

  Most of the casualties she and Jessup had that shift were fairly routine: amputations, the savage lacerations of the latest Khalian mankind-mangler. There was satisfaction in saving all the lives but Bardie suffered from a most insistent hallucination—she saw O’Hara’s smile on nearly every patient.

  At the end of her shift, she went back to Bay 22, Bed 4 and read the latest chart entries. Technically Roger O’Hara had not regained consciousness. There was no one else in the bay. Feeling decidedly self-conscious, Bardie stroked his forehead, entangling his curls in her fingers, then let her finger ride down the side of his face. The faint smile appeared.

  “Roger,” she said softly, caressingly, “you’re in there. I know it. Please don’t keep hiding. It’s all right to wake up. You’re in your own body. We’re not allowed to disembody you, you know. That’s why you have the option. But you’re all right. Really, you are! You’re still in one piece and recovering far better than could be expected.”

  She repeated the caress and he stirred, a deep “mmm” starting in his throat, and he licked his lips. “Thataboy, Roger.” She dipped her finger in the water glass and passed it across his lips, which surprisingly were not as dry as they ought to be. “C’mon, Roger. Wake up.” Again the frown.

  “Don’t want to wake up, do you? Well, it’s okay to. You’ll be just fine. Only wake up. I think Brandeis has some ideas about you, flyboy, that you wouldn’t like at all. So I really do advise you to wake up.” The frown was deeper, Roger’s head turned as if resisting the request. “Do it, for me, will you, Roger? Wake up for Bardie, will you?” She smoothed his hair back, fondling it, again surprised at its softness and the springiness of the curls that wrapped about her fingers. “You’re some mother’s son, Roger. C’mon, sweetheart, open, your eyes!” She made her tone wheedlingly loving. The eyelids trembled and the muscles in his cheeks and temples moved. “It’s really okay to wake up, Roger.”

  She chuckled. “You sure don’t like that word, do you?” The frown obediently appeared but it was deeper now. “I wonder why. The call to duty, or merely back to life again. A guy who looks like you wouldn’t have much trouble with life. And you’ll be out of this war—that is if you decide to . . . rouse!” She grinned as she substituted a synonym. Then, out of pure mischief, remembering what Jessup had originally called him, she bent forward,” Roger, sleeping beauty,” and kissed him on the lips.

  Simultaneously she heard movement just beyond her and saw his eyelids flutter open, blinking wildly to focus. She slipped from the bed and out of the bay before she could be hailed. Safely back in her cubicle, she dialed up Bay 22, Bed 4,and saw the alert readings of the Alpha waves. Sleeping Beauty had awakened.

  She got her wish to be so busy in the final days of her contract that she had no time to think. She woke that last morning on the Elizabeth Blackwell with a feeling of such intense relief that she had survived her two years that she was almost in tears. To restore her composure, she used her entire day’s wafer ration in the shower and shampooed her hair, blowing it dry and attempting to style it as a going-home preparation. She dressed in the smart unitunic, tight-fitting pants and boots, clothes she hadn’t worn during her entire tour of duty. She even put on a touch of the scent that had lain unused on the shelf of her locker. Then she stuffed a clean shipsuit and briefs into her bag and the few personal things she’d been allowed to bring, and that was that.

  “Hey, dress blues match your eyes. Nice!” Nellie said, widening her eyes appreciatively when she walked into the wardroom. Two of the other off-duty surgeons accorded her a long whistle before they served her the traditional farewell jigger of fleet juice.

  There were some letters consigned to her to bring home. Then Bardie left a good-bye message on the wardroom screen for the rest of her MASH friends before it was time to take the shuttle that would bring her on the first leg of her homeward journey. Nellie insisted on going with her to the airlock.

  ‘‘Oh, Stitches, I’ll never have another as good as you, I’m sure I won’t,” Nellie said, unexpectedly sobbing in their farewell embrace.

  Bardie held her off, rather chuffed that the case-hardened nurse had such a sentimental streak. “How many surgeons have you survived so far, Nellie?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nellie said, gulping. “It’s you I’ll miss. “

  “Not if the next one is handsome!”

  “Speaking of,” Nellie said, her sobs miraculously stanched as she looked down the ramp, “here’s sleeping beauty himself!”

  Bardie cast a glance over her shoulder and saw, in the stream of wounded being evacuated on this shuttle, Lt. Roger Elliott Christopher O’Hara on an anti-grav seat being guided by Naffie who was chatting affably to his charge. The pilot wore a pleasant enough expression but the slight furrow to his brows indicated more tolerance than interest. So he hadn’t been one for Naffie after all. Awake, though still semi-recumbent, but responding, Roger O’Hara was really too good-looking for anyone’s peace of mind. And his hair curled outrageously over a still-pale face.

  “Amazing recovery,” Nellie went on. “Brandeis had hoped to make him a special study case. I heard he woke up the moment he found out.”

  Bardie hurried the good-byes as much as she could, wanting somehow to get aboard the shuttle before Roger arrived at the airlock. She succeeded, wondering during the take-off procedures why she had run like a startled virgin at the sight of him.

  Her reaction puzzled her all through the long boring run to the relief vessel. Then, just as the shuttle locked onto the mother hospital ship, she realized what had startled her: of all the men and women she had operated on, Lt. Roger O’Hara was the only one whose face she had recognized. And it hadn’t that much to do with the sleeping beauty aspect of their patient-doctor relationship. She did ward rounds frequently enough but the patients were bay and bed numbers, wound descriptions, severity categories that she forgot as soon as she moved on to the next wounded body. And it couldn’t have anything to do with kissing the man, or his startling return to consciousness as a result of that resuscitation. It certainly couldn’t have anything to do with him being a sleeping beauty, a frog prince, or a humpty dumpty.

  Fortunately the usual well-organized confusion as the wounded were disembarked first broke that remarkable revelation. Bardie caught a
brief glimpse of O’Hara being air-cushioned out, his eyes closed. She wondered briefly if he’d made the trip all right: two weeks was not long enough to mend his desperate wounds.

  She had received her cabin assignment and was settling into quarters considerably larger than those she had enjoyed in the Elizabeth Blackwell. She had space to stand in and a pull-down desk surface and stool as well as her own sanitary cabinet. She had just turned on the screen to familiarize herself with the ship’s diagram when the buzzer went off and the screen cleared to a duty station.

  “Major Surgeon Makem, please report to Deck C, Ward Station G.”

  “What’s the problem?” The corpsman glanced down to his right. “You’re surgeon of record to a Lt. R.E.C. O’Hara?”

  “That’s right. What’s wrong?” Maybe he’d been evacuated too soon.

  “He won’t wake up.”

  “What?”

  “If you’d please come, Major?” Long-service corpsmen could develop a tone that was tantamount to an order.

  Besides being worried about O’Hara, Bardie was curious.

  She had seen O’Hara leave the shuttle with his eyes closed, but for him to have slept? With the normal bucketing, creaking, and groaning on even the newest shuttle, that was unlikely.

  She keyed in the ship’s deck plan and first located the anti-gray shaft nearest her quarters on H-Deck, then Ward G on C-Deck. When she got there, the officious corpsman was waiting for her with ill-concealed impatience. His expression said “you took your time” but he merely gave her a curt nod of his head, gestured for her to follow him.

  “If you’ll check him over, Major, since you’re familiar with his case . . . “ the corpsman said, stepping aside for her to enter the cabin. He shut the door immediately behind her and Bardie wondered if she should report his most unusual behavior to the Deck Physician.

  But there was Roger Elliott Christopher O’Hara, neatly cocooned in his sensor sheet, and the printout over his bunk gave her no cause for immediate alarm. Except that he looked rather more pale than he ought. She approached the bunk, noting the light sheen of sweat on his brow. The sensor did not indicate any unusual amount of pain-reaction, and according to his chart, he’d been given medication two hours before.